“It is night now in the world,” said the Spirit. “Here we come to view the great theatre. Do you think it is worth the price?” Deborah shivered. “It is not for me to judge,” she replied. “Perhaps I’m a coward.” The Spirit smiled. “So you think the price paid to come to this chill dreary place too dear.” “Oh, yes, yes. Left to myself I never would have come.” For some minutes they waited in silence. Suddenly the middle of the Black Cloud changed to a dusky red, and took a shape—the old, timeworn shape, the Cross. And on it hung the sacred Figure. Great drops of blood dripped from hands and feet and brow, and trickled between the thick branches into the Silent Wood. The pale bloodless face hung low. Outside in the world the big clock at Westminster struck the midnight hour. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.” No more. There came then that bitter cry—the bitterest the still air has ever heard or the wide world ever known—the keynote from which every voice in the forest takes its pitch, and it was those words, which must strike a chill even to the heart of the most thoughtless—“My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” And oh! the lingering moan on that last word! What father could ever thus torture his own beloved son, who had given up all and suffered all for him? The gay streets of the world were rowdy and noisy—carriages, hansoms, ’buses driving everywhere. Laughter and songs and shouting. But Deborah shuddered. “Why did you bring me here for this?” “To hear the bitterest cry of all. Do you wonder at the blackness of the Cloud now? It contains such mental agony and human pain. It’s the great curse, you know, that the world calls a blessing, and says can save it from the power of hell. Reckoned from the world’s storehouse that cramped Figure was a marvellous fool. He had brains enough to have won a kingdom, and He’d learnt no more from His early trade than to make use of two rough planks of wood.” Then, as it had come, the pained vision melted away. But afterwards you never looked at the dark cloud without seeming to see the red drops flowing from it into the stifling groves below. “That is the Baptism and the Cup He speaks of,” said the Spirit. “It is the Reservoir of the Gurgling Streams.” “But is He suffering all the time?” “No. No. It is the Reflection from the Forest. That Cross overhangs the Central part, where He of His own Free will fell down among the leaves, in Silence and in Desolation. The learned Jews shook their sides with laughing when He fell, but rather strangely He rose again the third day.” “And the blood that flows, is it not real?” “Oh, yes! very real,” replied the Spirit, smiling. “Having felt it I thought you would have known. It’s pain, you know. Just in the same way that the sun attracts the moisture from the earth and lets it drop again, so that cloud attracts the red-dyed dew and drops it every evening.